Council Hopefuls Promote Platforms

With voting set to begin Monday, snow has not deterred Undergraduate Council presidential and vice-presidential candidates from campaigning outdoors and getting their message to students.

Three sets of running-mates—Rohit Chopra ’04 and Jessica R. Stannard-Friel ’04; David M. Darst ’04 and Shira S. Simon ’04; and Fred O. Smith ’04 and Justin R. Chapa ’05—and their supporters campaigned outside the Science Center in the unfriendly weather and discussed aspects of their platforms with passers-by yesterday.

The two other tickets—Jason L. Lurie ’05 and Alexander S. Misono ’04, and Hunter A. Maats ’04 and John Paul M. Fox ’04—have been canvassing for votes on a smaller scale.

As student groups meet with candidates to decide endorsement and provide forums for campaign platforms, most would-be council presidents and vice presidents will spend the remaining few days before elections begin disseminating their views of the council’s future.

The Candidates

The candidates’ experiences and pet issues run the gamut from student life to the council’s organization to curricular reforms.

Chopra and Stannard-Friel, the council’s Student Affairs Committee (SAC) and Campus Life Committee chairs, respectively, have the most experience with the council.

They count their advocacy for extended party hours and later universal keycard access (UKA) among their accomplishments, and they also cite their efforts to reduce the Core requirements, make easier study-abroad, improve first-year advising and reform the lottery system in courses.

Chopra has also worked with the City of Cambridge on a project to improve pedestrian safety, advised University President Lawrence H. Summers on the naming of a new dean of the Faculty last year and served on multiple student-Faculty committees.

Darst, who has no experience with the council, has teamed with Simon, who is a council veteran and vice chair of SAC.

Darst has founded a pharmaceutical company, worked with a humanitarian non-profit organization devoted to fighting tuberculosis in Africa and is a member of Harvard’s sailing team.

Lurie and Misono have attracted attention for the former’s stances on religion at Harvard.

Lurie, who is in his first term as a council representative, was responsible last month for the council postponing approval of funds to two student groups, the Harvard-Radcliffe Christian Fellowship (HRCF) and the Harvard Asian Baptist Student Koinonia (HABSK).

Lurie, also a member of the Harvard Secular Society, said the two groups discriminate on the basis of religion and that supporting these organizations would violate the council’s constitution. Though the council later approved a grant for HABSK, the Christian Fellowship is still being investigated by the College administration.

Smith, who is vice chair of the council’s Finance Committee, has partnered with Chapa, who is a council representative and a member of the Harvard Republican Club’s executive board.

Smith has spearheaded the implementation of the council’s online events calendar, served as co-chair of the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgendered Supporters’ Alliance and currently serves as vice president of the Black Students Association. He counts a discourse with Summers regarding Faculty diversity and his role in forming a committee of student leaders on sexual violence as key accomplishments.

The Issues

Each of the tickets has proposed a platform and adopted a variety of issues—many of them common to multiple tickets—as central planks.

Improving social life for students has become a central policy issue for the candidates.

Smith-Chapa lists on its platform a few priorities for social life: expanding Crimson Cash to multiple restaurants in the Square, implementing Universal Keycard Access, seeking digital cable installation in dorms and securing social space when, in 2013, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences acquires the property currently used by the Inn at Harvard.

Darst-Simon have also pushed for Crimson Cash expansion, saying they hope to introduce the program at Pinnochio’s and Tommy’s. In addition, they say they hope to bring kegs back to the Harvard-Yale Game, increase communication between House Committees and the council, work for better athletic facilities and improve the Concert Commission-run venues.

Chopra-Stannard-Friel have similarly made better Concert Commission events a priority. They’ve also said they want to create a program subsidizing parties in students’ rooms, have class-wide events to “fill the gap between the Freshman Formal and the Senior Booze Cruise” and start inexpensive movie nights in the Science Center. In council meetings, Chopra has said he hopes to extend keycard access hours even further.

Beyond social life, candidates are also taking strong stands on academic matters—especially in light of the current curricular review.

In much of their campaign material, the first promise by Darst-Simon is that they “will not let shopping period be taken away.” The ticket has also said it hopes to extend the deadline by which students must choose concentrations, increase student involvement in the “core review” and evaluate all advising in the College.

Similarly, increased student input in the curricular review comprises a plank for Chopra and Stannard-Friel. The running-mates say other academic issues they plan to put on their agenda include replacing sourcebooks with free online sourcebooks, extending library hours, increasing financial aid and creating an official protocol for students to propose new courses and concentrations.

The Smith-Chapa ticket has said it will seek to improve financial aid by pushing for a reduced summer work requirement, and also desires to increase student representation in University decisions.

Lurie-Misono said they will try to increase the frequency of shuttle service, provide more funding for student groups, and make the arts more prominent on campus through added subsidies by the council.

Maats wrote in an e-mail that his campaign will stand for “the same five or six issues that candidates have been promising for the last ten or twenty years: better teaching, UKA [universal keycard access], cable, later party hours and building programs that would give us a better MAC [Malkin Athletic Center] and a students center.”

He also said that he wants to “show a sense of humor, that we’re different and that we’re willing to take some risks.”

Smith-Chapa has also underscored the need for increased student group funding. According to the campaign’s platform, the increased funding could be accomplished through a “more responsible UC budget,” matching funds from the University and business sponsorships. Offices for student groups could also be created, Smith and Chapa have said, in the MAC and other locations.

Other planks in the Smith-Chapa platform include student safety (the candidates have mentioned increased sexual violence education, campus-wide HIV testing drives and a review of the Administrative Board’s policies on disputes among students), Faculty diversity and advocacy of certification for such fields as Latino Studies, Ethnic Studies and Gender/Sexuality Studies.

In their platform, Chopra and Stannard-Friel underscored extending shuttle service until dawn, expanding Office of Career Services hours, assisting student groups in winning grants by consolidating applications for funding, lobbying for student representation on the Ad Board and presenting a thorough plan for a student center to be constructed after the University moves to Allston.

Darst and Simon, like the other tickets, pledge to push for increased student group funding and matching funds from the University, as well as securing space for these groups. Additionally, they said they would brink back the UC Books program and improve the council’s website.

Both the Lurie-Misono and Smith-Chapa tickets have said they feel the council has failed to represent the student body adequately.

Lurie wrote that in order to become more representative, “the council must not loudly proclaim that it will undertake tasks that are outside its scope.”

—Staff writer Alexander J. Blenkinsopp can be reached at blenkins@fas.harvard.edu.